JUDGMENT :

Dinesh Kumar Singh, J.

Heard Sri V.P. Srivastava, learned Sr. Advocate & Sri V.M. Zaidi, learned Sr. Advocate assisted by Sri Dileep Kumar and Sri N.I. Jafri, learned counsel for the appellants, Sri Satish Trivedi, learned Sr. Advocate assisted by Sri Ajay Kumar Pandey, Sri Sudhir Kumar Agarwal, learned counsel for the complainant and Sri S.K. Pal, learned Government Advocate assisted by Sri J.P. Tripathi, learned A.G.A. for the State.

2. This Criminal (Capital) Appeal No. 205 of 2018 (reference no. 8 of 2018) has been preferred against the judgment and order dated 20.11.2018 preferred by accused appellants, Sarfaraz Ali, Md. Sahid, Sadiq and Rashid against the judgement and order dated 20.11.2018 passed in S.T. No. 957 of 2010 and in connected S.T. No. 9 of 2011.

3. Criminal Appeal No. 206 of 2018 has been preferred by accused, Arshad against the same judgement passed in S.T. No.9 of 2011.

4. Criminal Appeal No. 207 of 2018 has been preferred by accused appellants, Farukh and Mumtaj against the same judgment in S.T. No. 9 of 2011.

5. In the said combined judgement of S.T. No. 957 of 2010 and S.T. No. 9 of 2011, the trial court has convicted the appellants Sarfaraz Ali, Md. Sahid, Sadiq, Arshad, Rashid, Farukh and Mumtaj under Section 302 read with Section 149 I.P.C. and sentenced with death penalty directing them to be hanged till death and fine of Rs. 1,000/- each and in default of payment of fine, one year additional R.I.; under Section 148 I.P.C., all of them have been sentenced with three years R.I. and fine of Rs. 1,000/- and in default of payment of fine, six months additional S.I. each; under Section 452 I.P.C., all of them have been sentenced with three years' R.I. and fine of Rs. 1,000/- and in default of payment of fine, six months S.I. each; under Section 307 I.P.C. read with Section 149 I.P.C., they have been awarded life imprisonment. Accused appellants, Sarfaraz Ali and Md. Sahid have been further convicted and sentenced with three years R.I. and find of Rs. 1,000/- under Section 25 of Arms Act in S.T. No. 958 of 2010 and S.T. No. 959 of 2010 respectively in the same judgment.

6. The trial court has passed combined judgment in S.T. No. 957 of 2010 along with S.T. No. 9 of 2011, S.T. No. 958 of 2010 and S.T. No. 959 of 2010 on 20.11.2018.

7. Since all the appeals mentioned above arise out of the same common judgment, in the interest of justice, all the three appeals are being disposed of jointly by us.

8. The prosecution case as disclosed in the F.I.R. is that the brothers of informant i.e. Naseem and Khalil (P.W.3) had had a quarrel about seven to eight days prior to the present occurrence with Sadiq S/o Iqbal of the same village which was got settled due to intervention of the villagers but Sadiq had given a threat that he would see them. Due to the said animosity on 27.2.2010 at about 2:00 p.m., Sadiq (A-1), his brother, Sahid (A-2) and others of his family i.e. Arshad (A-3) S/o farzullah, Rashid (A-4) S/o Isfaq, Sarfaraz (A-5) S/o Shaukat, Farukh (A-6) S/o Islam, Mumtaj (A-7) S/o Ismail, all residents of village, Harsauli came there, out of whom, Sadiq was armed with country-made gun and rest of them were armed with country-made pistols, at the house of informant and Sadiq abusingly uttered 'sale naseem tujhe dekhna hai' and entered into the informant's house and started making fire with an intention to kill in which his brother, Naseem, Khalil, Raiyyan and his nephew, Sakir received fire arm injury. Informant was also fired upon but he saved his life by fleeing from there and concealing himself. These accused believing that all the brothers of the informant and his nephew had died, went away from there. This occurrence was witnessed by Ilias S/o Yaqoob R/o Makhyali who was informant's guest and ladies of the house i.e. Vakeela, Shabnam and Nerbun. The informant had taken brother, Naseem to government hospital, Muzaffarnagar where he was declared dead while the other brother, Khalil was fighting for his lif